Enyalios

I agree with the above. I personally thought WWH was ridiculous anyway but fact is, Hulk has always been shown to be a team buster. Hell the Avengers formed specifically to take him down so him walking through the majority of earth's mightiest virtually unscathed is a lot more consistent with his past showings. Hercules? Not so much. Sure an enraged Hercules can be a force, but aside from the initial Thunderbolts lineup, Herc has just never been shown at that level. Do I agree with it? No. A well written Hercules, based on powers and the skills he SHOULD have should be far more capable that he is shown, but unfortunately he is not. I think there are plenty of teams out there that he can rip through, but it would take some incredibly bad writing for him to actually beat all of them.

And even if he did, for it to reach the point that it did at the end of WWH where a huge battle take place to stop him (storywise it would make sense for that to be Thor), he would have to stay bloodlusted the entire time because if he is rational enough to start having gladiatorial fights, Hercules' own innate sense of honor would have stopped him long before it got to that stage. His last fight would have likely been with the warbound themselves to stop what he started and not one of the heroes.

Unfortunately with Ares he is primarily used as a punching bag for a lot of the villains and falls as the but end of a lot of rather dubious circumstances (Bendis sucks with powerful characters), but it should be noted that often times in the comics, whole plot lines revolve around how his enemies are going to deal with him (such as when Moonstar makes a deal with Hel in order to gain enough power to take him on). He does have some decent showings to his credit, both directly and other characters' acknowledgement of who he is and what he is capable of:

- He is the one that devised the strategy for Siege, whereby, had it not been for Loki switching sides, they would have one.

- During the siege of Asgard none of the Asgardians are able to beat him, to include Balder (Thor would have been able to, but Thor was obviously busy at this point)

- He is also the one that devised the plan to shrink and go inside Ultron to defeat him in his first real mission with the Avengers, and thereby saved Tony's life.

- On two separate occasions, when Olympus is about to be overrun, the Olympian gods turn to him and he near singlehandedly reverses the tide of battle.

- When the Mighty Avengers plan to storm Olympus, they realize that Ares needs to be taken out of the picture for them to win, so they send Venus to keep him busy.

- His fight with A-Bomb

- His fight with Skarr

- He is the first one in Siege to physically wound Sentry/Void, actually drawing blood from him (granted he got ripped in half, but still).

Demonstrations of skill, particularly with someone that uses weapons or a large weapon, is hard to show in a comic and is generally something that is acknowledged more than shown. There are clear exceptions for certain characters where writers and artists take great pains to show the skill of a particular character (Batman, Captain America, Black Panther, Daredevil, etc), but these are usually in solo titles and Ares pops up mostly in team books in recent years. Ares is not the only character to suffer from this. Wolverine we generally have to take on faith that he is as skilled as his reputation says he is, because the vast majority of his depictions show him taking hit after hit because he can and swinging his claws until he hits something. Even his movies show him just getting hit and swinging. Yet its pretty well accepted that he is among the best martial artists in the Marvel Universe.

@leesensei: That was one example and a poor one at that considering Hercules followed Athena's lead, Black Widow was the leader of the Champions, and a couple of women have been leaders of the Avengers while Hercules was with them.

The major difference between Hercules and Captain America in this regard was that Captain America began the day in WWII and when he 'woke up' it was completely different, and he had no real experience in dealing with that concept.

Hercules was not plucked from Ancient Greece and dropped into the modern world, he because a god (probably the ultimate culture shock) and then watched the world evolve. The Greek Gods were revered for in one form or another for nearly fifteen hundred years, give or take a few decades so Hercules is used to changing times. And while the Greek Gods withdrew their influence from the world at large (for the most part) its highly unlikely they severed awareness of what was going on in the world, and Hercules being half human and heavily concerned about the mortal world, would have been more curious than most.

Thor's presence during the WWH saga would not have changed anything. This has little to do with their abilities and everything to do with the story. That arc was Hulk's arc, and he was going to beat anyone and anything placed in front of him. Galactus himself could have come down and the Hulk would have beaten him because that was what the story called for. Thor would have likely either taken Sentry's place as the one who ultimately stops him (not likely since the story also called for us to be wowed by the power of the Sentry for his use in later books) or took Hercules's place as (or aided him). Otherwise Thor would have gotten swept aside somehow, again because that's what the story calls for.

Bare in mind this is not unique to the Hulk either. The Reigning was basically WWT, the difference being Thor ultimately erases it (and somehow forgets that he has beaten people who give him fits now). But Thor, too, beats everything in his path, even killing both Hulk and Thing in combat at the same time without the Odinforce or Mjolnir.

The fact that he has not used them once since his return, even while he had the Odin Force. Considering what he was capable of doing when he had them, when Mjolnir broke its fairly conceivable that he should have been able to fix it on his own and would have allowed him to stand a much better chance against the Phoenix and its hosts, not to mention the humiliating beat down he suffered at the hands of others.

Add that to the fact that he has his eyes back...

First, Magni is not the god of strength in Norse mythology. He is not the god of anything. Odin does not even seem to consider him an Aesir, calling him the mere son of a giant (which is funny considering most of his children, including Thor, are the sons of giants). Nor is it suggested anywhere that he is stronger than Thor.

"But his name means strength, like Thor's means Thunder". So? Thor has two daughters, both of whom's names mean power, another son whose name means Angry or Wrath and a step-son who's name means Glory. None of these are the gods of those elements (the later, Uller, is considered by most to be the god of archery and skiing). Most modern scholars view it more as the fact that all of his children have names related to attributes of their father. Hell, Thor's home is called the hall of strength.

"But he was able to lift a giant that Thor or any other god couldn't." No, he was able to lift a giant's leg that had fallen on the back of Thor's neck. Let's think for a second exactly how big and how heavy that would have to be to pin someone who can juggle whales in the myths. Then remember that, according to the myths it fell on the back of Thor's neck. Take something large and heavy that you would otherwise be able to lift and have it fall on your back, your arms and legs are going to be pinned, meaning you have no leverage to post yourself let alone lift it off you. This is not a sign of weakness its a sign of lack of possition. Now the myth does show that Magni was stronger than the other gods present, but then so was Thor, and Thor never does get the chance to try to lift. Also remember that this is the one myth, the one story that Magni appears in, so this is his only feat of strength. Thor has numerous, from destroying mountains to lifting multiple whales at once to pulling the Midgard Serpent out of the water. Magni has his work cut out for him if he is going to match his father.

Does this mean that Magni can't be stronger than his father or that he may not one day be? No, but you are not going to find a justification for it in myths and legends.

@z3ro180: Thor was pretty much the god of everything. His worshippers prayed to him for strength in battle, a successful harvest, success at marriage, successful sea voyages. He was the god that oaths were sworn to and who was prayed to for vengeance. He was prayed to for protection. It was Thor and his symbol not anyone elses's that competed with Christianity and the cross symbol. Some Christian priests even prayed to him. He's called the god of Thunder because that's his name, but his spere of influence was much greater.

@powerherc: Again Hercules is not shown to be stronger than Hercules. Every flat out contest of strength between the two has shown them as equals. Also, Thor was stronger than his father, this is true, but the odds of Magni being stronger than Thor, based on past showings, are pretty slim. Thor is stronger than Odin because, thanks to his mother Gaia he is a purer strain of god, one step removed from Gaia. All of the Asgardians have shown to grow weaker in successive generations. Balder and Tyr are both slightly weaker than Odin and significantly weaker than Thor. Every other Asgardian is weaker than they are. Tyr was considered the mightiest warrior in Asgard before the loss of his and and the coming of Thor. And Thor with the Odin Force was barely a match for Bor whereas Odin at full power humbles Thor with relative ease. Magni's mother in the comics is Amora who has a claim at superhuman strength by virtue of being an Asgardian but is likely the physically weakest of the goddesses. He is probably stronger than any other Asgardian, but odds are he is not going to surpass the full strength of Thor.

@snakeeyez:

@OmgOmgWtfWtf:

Wow, all of this is kind of funny. I can understand the concern that a lot of you are throwing out there, I do, but unlike what you say snakeeyez, when Idris Elba was cast to play Heimdall, people did cry foul. You know what the general concensus was? That these people were racist for their complaint. There were some that complained when Sam Jackson was cast as Nick Fury, and again these people were cast as racists. And now a half white half Chinese character has been recast as a half white, half Indian and your complaint is he is not Asian enough?

There is no such thing as reverse racisism, its just racisism. If it was racist for those that complained about Idris Elba being cast as a Norse/Anglo-Saxon God, then it is equally racist for people to complain about Ben Kingsly being cast as a half-Chinese half English supervillan.

From a publisher's perspective, Marvel is an American company so that is why his stories take place here. Its not that Americans don't care about the rest of the world, its simply that when you are writing a story, you make your character's relatable to the people you are writing them for. Its why Marvel created a European branch for the comic company.

From a story perspective, Thor does find his hammer in Norway in the original comic. The reason Thor is set up currently in America is because that's where Donald Blake lived. Thor simply returned there and began operating, and by the time he got seperated from Blake the first time, most of his friends (the Avengers, Jane Foster, etc) and such were there.

Restricting Thor to Norway however is a bit stupid, considering he was worshiped all over Europe. Monuments to Thor have been found in in nearly every Eurpoean country, and most of what we know about him comes from Icelandic tales. The earliest recordings of him actually come from the Germans by way of the Romans. Add that to the fact that there are more people of European decent in the U.S. than any single Country in Europe (including over 50 million German Americans and over 11 million Scandanavian Americans compared to about 5 million total population in Norway) means the U.S. likely houses more decendants of the original worshipers of the Germanic gods (and gods are more tied to people than places). So in all actuality it actually makes as much sense for modern Thor to be based in the United States as it does for him to be based anywhere else.

Yes and no. Thor has demonstrated each one of those powers, though the article itself was clearly written by a less than unbiased Thor fan, particularly in the area of strength. While Thor has overpowered those beings listed, each of them has overpowered him in return at some point. I also do not recall Thor ever shattering planets or stars with his fist, and the two references that it uses for those don't even involve Thor at all, but Beta Ray Bill and as I recall, its not something that is shown, but something he claimed to be capable of. His strength being called unlimited is a little misleading as well since, while characters have refered to him as having unlimited strength, its typically done by Thor himself or Asgardians while they are bragging. It is definately in keeping with the Norse/Germanic traditions (they used to brag all the time, read Beowulf), but it could hardly be called a definitive authority.

So yes the page is correct in the context of Thor having exhibited each one of those powers, but the content itself clearly leans towards hyping Thor up and not offering an objective assessment of his powers.

Thor and Hercules are well established equals in strength within the pages of Marvel Comics. Every actual test of strength between the two puts them as equal. Hercules has been established once in their most recent confrontation as slightly better than Thor in hand to hand combat. It is their most recent confrontation and therefore should be taken as gospel even if it is inconsistant with every other showing, it is Thor that is making the admission. Personally I would wait to see if it ever happens again before calling it official. One could be a fluke, two marks a pattern.

Hand to hand combat, however, does not equate to strength. Most hand to hand combat has to do with technique, possitioning and leverage, particularly in wressling. A rear choke like what Hercules utilizes in Blood Oath is not going to be broken by strength alone, particularly if someone is your physical equal. Its a good nod to Hercules and a good way of seperating him from other physical powerhouses, I just wish they would be more consistant with hit.

As for Hercules 12 labors, they have been acknowledged as having occured in the Marvel Universe, though not all of them were completed by Hercules, some were actually completed by the Forgotten One. The cleaning of the Aegean Stables as been outright stated, others have been hinted at, to include the lifting of the heavens (not the earth). [Coincidently, this is actually in keeping with the myth, as there were at least two different Heracles's (the most well known being the son of Zeus and Alceme, but another being the son of Zeus and Lysithoe) running around that all got lumped together. In fact there were as manay as seven whose feats are interchanged.]